Mul­ti­lat­eral In­vest­ment and
Trade Con­fer­ence 2011

Pak­istan has adopted lib­eral and in­vestor­friendly poli­cies which in­clude proac­tive fa­cil­i­ta­tion, guar­an­tees of equal treat­ment to both lo­cal and for­eign in­vestors, an easy tar­iff struc­ture and a lib­eral regime for repa­tri­a­tion of prof­its. As such, Pak­istan’s econ­omy is show­ing a fair de­gree of re­silience.

In this re­spect, the Mul­ti­lat­eral In­vest­ment and Trade Con­fer­ence 2011, was made an in­te­gral part of Expo Pak­istan for the first time this year. The Con­fer­ence took place on Oc­to­ber 20, at Mar­riot Ho­tel, Karachi. Held un­der the aegis of TDAP, the Board of In­vest­ment and the Pak­istan-ja­pan Busi­ness Fo­rum, the con­fer­ence in­cluded B2B meet­ings and brain­storm­ing ses­sion for in­vestors and en­trepreneurs. It was bro­ken up into five work­ing groups, namely: Agri­cul­ture and Dairy Farm­ing, In­fra­struc­ture in­clud­ing En­ergy, Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, En­gi­neer­ing, and Mines and Min­er­als.

There were no speeches at the con­fer­ence which al­lowed a po­ten­tial par­tic­i­pant to choose the work­ing group of his par­tic­u­lar in­ter­est, and ac­tively par­tic­i­pate in the pro­ceed­ings of the group.

In­vestors and busi­ness lead­ers from more than 15 coun­tries par­tic­i­pated in the strate­gic break­out groups.

The con­fer­ence was ar­ranged with the com­bined ef­forts of busi­ness fo­rums from Aus­tralia, Bel­gium, France, Ger­many, Italy, Ja­pan, Korea, Malaysia, Rus­sia, Sri Lanka and Switzer­land, which showed great con­fi­dence in the pro­duc­tiv­ity and po­ten­tial of the Pak­istani peo­ple and re­sources.

Saleem H. Mand­vi­wala, Chair­man, Board of In­vest­ments, said, “It is heart­en­ing to see the en­thu­si­as­tic re­sponse to this call for con­sol­i­da­tion of po­ten­tial in­vestors and busi­ness lead­ers from the in­ter­na­tional mar­ket. The re­cent eco­nomic slow­down and re­ces­sive trends in the global in­dus­trial sec­tors have ne­ces­si­tated a col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach to­wards quick eco­nomic re­vival”.

Ab­dul Kader Jaf­fer, Chair­man of the con­fer­ence and also the Pres­i­dent of the Pak­istan- Ja­pan Busi­ness Fo­rum, ex­pressed his con­fi­dence in the pro­duc­tiv­ity and po­ten­tial of the coun­try. He said; “Pak­istan’s econ­omy of­fers vast op­por­tu­ni­ties for for­eign enterprises and in­vestors to man­u­fac­ture, im­port, re­lo­cate and re-ex­port a wide range of high- qual­ity prod­ucts, com­modi­ties, ser­vices and re­sources.

The newly ap­pointed Gov­er­nor of the State Bank of Pak­istan, Yaseen An­war high­lighted the huge in­vest­ment po­ten­tial in small and medium size enterprises (SMES) and the hous­ing and agri­cul­ture sec­tor. Terming the three sec­tors as en­gines of growth, An­war pointed to the top mi­cro­fi­nance reg­u­la­tory frame­work rank­ing of Pak­istan by The Econ­o­mist. In this re­gard, he also men­tioned the mea­sures taken by the State Bank to pro­mote branch­less bank­ing in Pak­istan to help those who are not able to af­ford con­ven­tional bank­ing.

The Karachi Cham­ber of Com­merce and In­dus­try (KCCI) signed an MOU with the Chi­nese and Egyp­tian trade del­e­ga­tions at­tend­ing the con­fer­ence.

Halal raw ma­te­ri­als for ex­port also fea­tured. KCCI Pres­i­dent Mian Abrar Ah­mad’s meet­ing with for­eign del­e­ga­tions high­lighted the po­ten­tial of halal foods. The sec­tor en­cour­aged Malaysia to con­duct a sem­i­nar on halal foods in March next year. Both Mus­lim and non-mus­lim coun­tries have shown in­ter­est in im­port­ing halal foods from Pak­istan. Among the work­ing groups, in­fra­struc­ture and en­ergy was on top of the agenda.

Many up­com­ing projects were also high­lighted at the con­fer­ence, in­clud­ing the Track Ac­cess and Bham­bore Dairy Projects. The sig­nif­i­cance of mines and min­er­als was also dis­cussed.

A com­par­i­son of in­vest­ment in the sec­tor op­por­tu­ni­ties showed that while a Rs. 10 mil­lion in­vest­ment in Karachi could cre­ate em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties for 50 peo­ple but an equal amount of in­vest­ment in mines and min­er­als can cre­ate em­ploy­ment for 350 peo­ple.

The ‘ Mul­ti­lat­eral In­vest­ment and Trade Con­fer­ence 2011, was aimed at cre­at­ing a pool of qual­i­fied hu­man re­sources, a skilled labour force and a favourable busi­ness environment which will en­cour­age in­vestors to do busi­ness in Pak­istan. The coun­try’s econ­omy of­fers vast op­por­tu­ni­ties for for­eign enterprises and in­vestors, to man­u­fac­ture, im­port, re­lo­cate and re-ex­port a wide range of high qual­ity prod­ucts, com­modi­ties, ser­vices and re­sources